Emprevo moves into ECEC offering staffing and vacancy solutions

The Sector Assistant Editor, Freya Lucas, spoke with Bubup Womindjeka CEO, and Emprevo employee, Susie Rosback recently, about Emprevo, a staffing and vacancy solutions platform, and her experiences with the Emprevo team.

 

Emprevo is a mobile-first digital platform which supports industries (sic), such as aged care, allowing them to leverage internal workers to fill shifts ,reducing the use of recruitment agency staff, and saving time and money for busy managers. Noticing the alignment between the highly regulated, qualified staff-driven needs of the health care sector and the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector, Emprevo have recently expanded their offering into ECEC, using a pilot program with renowned centre Bubup Womindjeka Family and Children’s centre in Port Melbourne, Victoria.

 

Interviewee: Susie Rosback, CEO of Bubup Womindjeka Family and Children’s Centre and Emprevo employee

Organisation: Emprevo

Date: 22 November 2018

Topic: Emprevo platform, staffing, scheduling

 

Freya:  Susie, can you tell me a little bit about your background in the sector, and how you came to work with Emprevo?

 

Susie: I have worked as a kindergarten teacher for 30 years. For the past four years I have been the CEO of Bubup Womindjeka Family and Children’s centre in Port Melbourne. I have a passion for supporting vulnerable families as well as creating outstanding working conditions for early childhood educators.

 

I first became involved with Emprevo when they introduced us to their staff shift filling app. This app has helped reduce the cost of using agency staff and allowed casual child care workers a greater opportunity to access days of work.

 

Emprevo then developed their childcare vacancy filling app which we tested during its pilot phase. Our sales in extra days of care have gone from 12 per month to up to 70 extra days per month. I couldn’t believe the increase in sales and the increase to our revenue.

 

Emprevo were keen for me to join their team so that I could share our success story with others. So I now work part time as CEO of Bubup Womindjeka and part time helping other childcare services increase their profits like we did. My role at Emprevo is as an industry (sic) expert consultant.

 

Freya: Great, thanks Susie. Can you tell me some of the history of Emprevo. Have they always had an interest in the caring professions, such as healthcare and ECEC?

 

Susie: Emprevo got their start in 2014 as problem solvers with a major aged care provider. Managers would release a roster, and allocate shifts, however almost as soon as the roster was set, changes would need to be made, leading to shifts that needed to be filled. Filling the shifts quickly and cheaply was a huge issue. It was a major time spend for managers, and if staff couldn’t be found, managers would have to use agency staff, which added financial pressure.

 

On the back of these issues, Emprevo was built, as a platform that could help managers fill shifts quickly, and that was cost effective. Version two of the program launched in August 2017, with 2018 being the year of true expansion into the ECEC sector.

 

Since that time, Emprevo has been working across multiple sectors and industries as problems with rosters and filling shifts are  a universal problem. Emprevo is now a part of the working day in more than 60 companies who are filling over 30,000 shifts a month across Australia and New Zealand. We see ourselves as the smart platform for filling shifts and vacancies.

 

Freya: Terrific, thanks Susie. Emprevo’s current website content is skewed toward healthcare. Can you tell me more about the move into early childhood, and what makes Emprevo a good fit for the space?

 

Susie: As well as the Emprevo platform being suitable for filling shifts for childcare workers as mentioned above, more recently, Emprevo has evolved to be a way to fill vacancies for childcare places in childcare centres.

 

The concept is that as vacancies come up in the various  rooms of the centre, the centre can then offer these vacancies to parents that might want them for their child through Emprevo.

 

Not only are the vacancies filled quickly and easily but has led to over 80 per cent in extra revenue for these extra vacancies for the centre. Parents love it too as it’s a really easy way for them to confirm extra days in their childcare centre at any time of the day through their smartphone.

 

Freya: Thanks Susie. Can you let me know some more about how long Emprevo has been in the ECEC space?

 

Susie: At Bubup Womindjeka we started using the shift-filling app around 18 months ago. About a year ago we started the pilot of the vacancy filling app. Since then our additional vacancies filled have grown each month. In our first month we sold 26 vacancies, and since then we have average sales to our parents of 65 days in a month, which is great.

 

Freya: And what about the reach for Emprevo?

 

Susie: We believe that the simplicity and the effectiveness of the Emprevo solution is very well suited to childcare and will solve both the problem of shift filling (saving time and money by filling shifts) and filling vacancies (making additional revenue by filling vacancies). There’s a lot of potential for the platform to support further in the ECEC sector.

 

Freya: Thanks Susie. As a service leader and CEO, what do you see as the benefits for a service in terms of connecting with Emprevo?  

 

Susie: Well, we’ve seen considerable increases in monthly revenue, through selling vacant spots. Our families find the system convenient and easy to use. Being a free platform for families is appealing to them. From a provider perspective, there are no contracts that you’re locked into, and you pay a fee based on the vacancies you fill, so it’s affordable from that perspective.

 

In terms of the shift filling aspect of Emprevo, centres are making significant savings by not paying recruitment agency fees for casuals, as well as a time saving by not needing to call in for agency or casual staff to fill shifts.

 

The fact that the platform is easy to use and convenient comes second to the extra money – both in terms of saving on recruitment costs, and selling vacancies – at such a competitive time in the sector.

 

Freya: Wonderful. Thanks for your time Susie

 

ECEC service providers interested in learning more about Emprevo are invited to view the website, or complete Emprevo’s contact request form.

 

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